Exercise 2 of HW 2

These questions refer to the Simon Cole Suspect Identities readings; the questions call for you to use direct quotations when responding.

SYNOPSIS OF PART 1 OF THE READING (pp. 190 - 199):

In this chapter, Historian Simon Cole maps out the changing ways in which finger print evidence came to be considered by courts as "reliable." At first, courts accepted finger print evidence because "virtuoso" fingerprint examiners "dazzled" jurors in individial court cases with demonstrations of finger print identification. But fingerprint examiners wished to change the "locus of credibility, from the specific, demonstrated competence of the individual examiner to the general reliability of the technique." (p.192) In essence, examiners aimed to make fingerprinting a "black box" process that the public neither doubted nor were inclined to "inquire further into its inner workings." (p. 199). But as Cole explains In the pages you read for today (pp. 190 - 199), making fingerprinting a blackbox process would require policing who could be a fingerprint examiner. That policing would not came from the courts, however. Instead it came from the field itself--a move that created complications that we still live with today.

Answer the following two questions:

1) According to the historian Simon Cole, how and why did the Loomis demonstrate the need to regulate latent fingerprint identification?

Be Sure To:

A) Use both evidence in the form of direct quotation and cl/ev/wa

B) Integrate your direct quotations using either METHOD 3 OR METHOD 4 FROM THE EXPLANATION OF HOW TO INTEGRATE QUOTATIONS (-10% IF YOU DO NOT)

C) Punctuate the quotation properly

2) Why did the increasingly moribound nature of the ISPI mean that fingerprinting would become more closely aligned with the law enforcement community than the scientific community?

Be Sure To:

A) Use both evidence in the form of direct quotation and cl/ev/wa

B) Integrate your direct quotations using either METHOD 3 OR METHOD 4 FROM THE EXPLANATION OF HOW TO INTEGRATE QUOTATIONS (-10% IF YOU DO NOT)

C) Punctuate the quotation properly

END OF ASSIGNMENT